2007

Highlights of 2007:

February 14: Tempe, Arizona, USA – Tiffany Sutton, 23, is arrested on suspicion that she tied up Robert McDaniel during sex, then stabbed him repeatedly with a knife and told him she likes to drink blood, police said. She’d been staying with him for a couple of days and had agreed to participate in kinky sex, although no mention is made of who came up with this idea. With them is a book, “The Eighth Circle”, a reference to one of the lower arenas in Dante’s literary circles of hell. McDaniel ended up in a hell of his own, once he was bound and vulnerable. McDaniel told police he had consented to being tied up but became scared when the woman attacked him with a knife. He eventually freed himself and ran away, but Sutton chased him with a pickax, police said. Police report she was arrested on suspicion of aggravated assault at a Tempe home where she and the victim live. The man was taken in an ambulance to a local hospital, where he was treated for injuries. Police said both Sutton and the man admitted that they had consumed alcohol and drugs prior to the incident. Sutton claims the entire encounter was consensual.

March 11: Canada – “Blood Ties”, a Canadian vampire TV series, premiers in the United States. It is canceled at the end of season 2.

April: Burma – The Dracula fish, Danionella dracula, a species of tropical danionin fish from the cyprinid family is identified from specimens shipped to the United Kingdom in a consignment of aquarium fish. The Dracula fish has so far only been found in the wild in a small stream at Sha Du Zup between Mogaung and Tanai in northern Burma. It is named after its unusual “fangs”. Male Dracula fish have protruding tooth-like bones stemming from their jawbones and are observed using them to spar against other males. The natural diet of the Dracula fish is unknown, but in captivity it eats shrimp larvae, small nematodes and fish flakes. According to the report “New Blood: Greater Mekong New Species Discoveries 2009”, the fish, also called the “Dracula Minnow”, has bulging eyes and two sharp fangs which grows to just 0.6 inches in length.

April 30: Bare Root, Guyana – A crowd of Guyanese villagers lynch an elderly woman they accused of being an evil spirit (“Old Higue”—the equivalent of a vampire in the local Obeah religion that blends folk magic and African rituals) who drinks the blood of human babies. Mrs. Radika Singh, described as a mentally disabled, fifty-five-year-old psychiatric patient who had wandered away from relatives tending her, wandered into the village. She’d been disoriented and probably did not speak clearly. Two men called out to her, believing she was a girl from the village, and when she snarled at them, they decided she was not human. Around the same time, a village resident spotted a red mark on her child’s chest that indicated an “Old Higue” — a vampiric spirit that sheds its skin and transforms into fire – had come and sucked the child’s blood. Several people banded together to trap the woman in a circle of rice — which a vampire is compelled to count. They attempted to burn her with kerosene, but supposedly she did not ignite — one more sign, to their minds, that she was not human. No one knew her identity, so those who surrounded her apparently beat her and when she went down, someone shoved objects into her. They left her to die where she lay. She was essentially, lynched. Her cause of death was found to be blunt force trauma to the head. Three people were charged with her murder: Roland Spencer, 41, Rayon Bobb, 28, and Alita Roberts, 25.

The first results of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance VEWRS and AVEWRS surveys are released.

Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada – A court in Canada hears details of an horrific triple murder case linked to vampirism. Jeremy Allan Steinke, 23, and his girlfriend, who was 12 at the time of the incident, are accused of killing a couple, Marc and Debra Richardson and their eight-year-old son in Medicine Hat, Alberta in April 2006. Teen websites suggest the accused met on a ‘goth’ website linked to vampirism – and that the young girl quickly came under his influence. During his trial it is alleged that Steinke enjoyed drinking blood and once ate a batch of cookies that included blood as an ingredient.

Serbia – Vampire hunters mutilate the corpse of deceased Serbian dictator Slobodan Melosevic, driving a three foot hawthorn stake through his heart. The leader of the group, a self-described vampire hunter (and member of the Opposition Party) tell police that this was intended to prevent the late President from returning from the dead. It is still unclear whether the group actually believed in vampires or whether the incident was politically motivated. In either case, this demonstrates the lingering belief in vampires in modern Serbia.

May 04: Mpumalanga, South Africa –A draft Bill is tabled in South Africa, the Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill. It is believed by many to be a Christian fundamentalist response to the decriminalization of witchcraft in 1994 and lists as offenses: “Any person who conducts himself in the manner below shall be guilty of an offence: 1 (a) Imputes to any other person the causing, by supernatural means, of any disease in or injury or damage to any person or thing, or who names or indicates any other person as a wizard; (b) In circumstances indicating that he professes or pretends to use any supernatural power, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or disappointment of any person or thing to any other person; (c) Employs or solicits any witchdoctor, witch-finder or any other person to name or indicate any person as a wizard; (d) Professes a knowledge of witchcraft, or the use of charms, advises any person how to bewitch, injure or damage any person or thing, or supplies any person with any pretended means of witchcraft; (e) On the advice of any inyanga, witch-finder or other person or on the ground of any pretended knowledge of witchcraft, uses or causes to be put into operational any means or process which, in accordance with such advice or his own belief, is calculated to injure or damage any person or thing; and (f) For gain pretends to exercise or use any supernatural powers, witchcraft, sorcery or enchantment.” The Bill is defeated, declared unconstitutional, and does not pass.

September: Huntington Park, Newport News, USA – Jonathan Barron, is kidnapped by acquaintances he met through a Norfolk store that caters to Wiccan and pagan activities. Barron, known in the group as “Lord Othis” and described as a self-proclaimed vampire, is taken to Colonial National Historic Park in York County where he is beaten, stabbed, has his hair set on fire and is injected with silver thermal compound and Barbicide disinfectant through a marinade needle. He also is hit by a car before being left for dead. Barron survives. Well known vampirologist and attention-seeking protagonist of “satanic-panic”, Don Rimer, who consults with police departments, is involved with the investigation. According to court testimony from 2009, the attack was prompted by an unfounded accusation that Barron raped Davidson and her teen-aged daughter. Stephen Walters – who is described in court as a self-described werewolf – and his girlfriend Dianna Marie Breznick along with Thomas Rogers each plead guilty and are sent to prison for their respective roles in the assault.

September 16: Hong Kong – A man is arrested in Hong Kong for stealing and drinking blood samples from a hospital. The 29-year-old was reportedly caught on surveillance cameras in the early morning as he stole three test-tubes of blood from the Yan Chai Hospital laboratory. He drank the blood and dumped the empty tubes in a rubbish bin in the hospital lift lobby before fleeing. He is later arrested at his home after staff at the hospital noticed the theft and reported it to police.

October 31: London, UK – Noted attention-seeker, Catholic Bishop, exorcist and “vampire hunter” of “the Highgate Vampire” infamy, Seán Manchester, features in a Discovery Channel documentary that embarks on a “global quest to discover the origins of the vampire legend in an effort to try and find out why these creatures continue to have such a hold on our imaginations.” The two-hour show “Real Vampires”, in which Seán Manchester is filmed on location, includes archaeologist Timothy Taylor and anthropologist Kathryn Denning. They embark on a journey from the mountains of Transylvania and the jungles of Brazil to the “vampiroid” covens of New York City and a “vampire haunt” in England. Their investigation fails to deliver any evidence of so-called real “undead” vampires and is like Sean Manchester, a disappointment.

Dallas, Texas, USA – Vampire Veneers. Newspapers report that teenage and 20 something girls and boys are heading into their local dentist and getting Vampire Veneers – Vampire Teeth installed by dentists. The Twilight Saga movies are being accredited for this ever increasing phenomenon. The veneers can cost $200 and up a set and are currently only being offered by a handful of dental professionals across the country. “It’s similar to the material that we use to bond braces on the teeth,” Dr. Herzog, a Dallas based professional stated, “so it can be put on and taken off very easily with no damage to the teeth.” Taylor Wilkins, the 16 year old in the video clip says she was really excited to get her vampire teeth and they didn’t hurt at all. The vampire teeth are not permanent and only last for a few months. Plus, the procedure can be reversed at any time.

November 21: Germany – A fugitive suspect in the gruesome murder of a British exchange student is arrested on a train in Germany after an undercover policeman reportedly befriended the man on Facebook and convinced him to return to Italy. Rudy Hermann Guede disappeared soon after Meredith Kercher’s murder in the Italian university town of Perugia, telling friends he was “going dancing in Milan”, The Daily Mail reports. Detectives reportedly found a bloody fingerprint from Guede on a pillowcase and DNA on toilet paper at the shared house where Ms Kercher’s half-naked body was discovered with her throat slit on November 2. Before he was arrested, a video — in which twenty-year-old Guede rants in almost incomprehensible English — was posted on YouTube. Cross-eyed and crazed-looking, Guede says he is a vampire who wants to suck blood. “Oh Mamma. I’m a vampire, I’m Dracula. I’m gonna suck your blood.”

December 3: The internet resource “Dark Nations” is created by Khan and Madame X of House of the Dreaming, with input from Seven Hathors of House Crescent Moon. The Dark Nations is created to unite participating houses in a co-operative venture to improve communications, exchange of information and relations between the groups. The “Dark Nations” is announced as a format for serious community business to be conducted, introduce different elements of the Vampyre Community, fix current disinformation presently circulated, and to be a home for those wishing to make a difference by example. This is the culmination of an attempt to add some dignity to the Vampyre Community at large and this premise not only is meant for the online community, but also occasions where real Vampyres congregate in public.

December 14: USA – The movie version of “I am legend” starring Will Smith is released.

December 21: A snarling ‘vampire’ repeatedly tries to bite the neck of his victim during an attack in Bishop’s Stortford, England. Like a scene from a horror movie, the assailant – dubbed “Dracula” by neighbours – leaps out of the darkness, grabs him and tries to bite his neck. The pair wrestle for some time before the victim manages to fight him off. He calls police and later alerts neighbors to the bizarre incident. “They’re nicknaming the attacker Dracula,” said one, who claims that three women had been similarly attacked in the Hockerill area. “He gropes them and bites their necks.” Another says of the attack: “The guy jumped out of nowhere, hissing and snarling” and attempted to bite his neck several times. The attacker is described as about 6ft (1.83m) tall and wore a beige combat jacket, jeans and trainers.